The main event of Day 2 was visiting a tribal village of the Zhou people, one of Taiwan’s 14 indigenous tribes. We did more walking through the forest, saw the fish farm they run and where they practice hunting (with arrows!), ate aboriginal foods and watched a performance of traditional dances.
My favorite part of the day happened before we even officially started, playing in the hotel parking lot with Ellie and Jason while we waited for the other students to pack their bags. Thanks to our little alarm-clock-special, our bags were ready to go before breakfast. After the morning mists cleared the mountain air was just glorious and I had a very sweet time picking clover flowers with my daughter and making them into necklaces for her. I have sweet sweet memories of my mom teaching me and my sister how to make clover flower necklaces when we were young, what a treat to be able to share this simple little pleasure with my own daughter on Mother’s Day.
Alas, all good things (often) must come to an end, and down the mountain we went. Next up was more walking, just the scenery changed a bit. We were now looking up at the mountains and the plants were tropical and jungle-y as opposed to the temperate-zone plant life that we saw growing in the cooler temperatures on top of Alishan and in Taiwan’s other high altitude regions (more on this tomorrow).
The view from our trail.
We stopped by the river to look at and feed fish raised by the Zhou people. I was concerned it would be a challenge keeping Ellie out of the water. Turns out I had nothing to worry about, Ellie could have been occupied all day long trying to pick up all the pebbles.
Ellie is in such a picking up/collecting phase. Everywhere we go she finds something – leaves, seeds, flowers, rocks - to collect and carry with her.
Notice that Ellie isn’t wearing any shoes in the picture above. Just as we were getting ready to head out the door and go on the trip it happened: we couldn’t find ONE of Ellie’s shoes. One was right were it should be, the other was in shoe Never-never Land. After half an hour of frantic searching (I even checked the freezer!) we had to either forget the shoes or not go on the trip at all. So I grabbed a couple of pairs of socks and Ellie got to be fancy free the whole weekend. (note: The day after we got back I found her other shoe in plain sight sitting on our bedroom floor. Must have been the Shoe Fairy.)
“Oh thanks honey, you got me a rock for Mother’s Day?!”
Here’s a clever way to barbecue: put everything on a hanging grill rack, then keep the rack swinging over a fire. On the grill are sausages and rice steaming inside bamboo sections. This “aboriginal rice” was so good! I had three servings that day.
On a hanging bridge that spans the gorge and river. Someone was getting pretty sleepy by this time.
Ellie revives to share some chocolate ice cream.
The last event on our agenda was watching Zhou traditional dances. Ellie had only had one short nap all day and by this time was running on too many cookies and excitement energy. There wasn’t a chance she would sit still, so we traded off taking her outside to run around and watching
the performance. The dances were very lovely, the harmonized singing was even lovelier.
Finally we all packed into the bus and headed back to the city. Almost four hours later (thanks to a traffic jam) we arrived back home worn out but refreshed.
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